


Your Password is Incorrect

by JackyJango



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Attempt at Humor, Hacking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 01:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyJango/pseuds/JackyJango
Summary: Sean finds something unexpected when he attempts to hack the Brotherhood's website per the Professor's orders.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Again this happened. I don't know why I can't seem to finish anything withing 1K words. I deeply apologise for this fic as well.

         The atmosphere in the room is tense. Even the youngest students are out of their beds, peeking through the doorways to the commotion in the hall where Sean and the rest have formed a crooked ring around the Professor. Meetings with the Brotherhood on the battlefield have always been an unpleasant encounter for them and this one had been even more so. Not that a public place like the entrance to a government building can be classified as a battlefield, but when the legendary Professor X and the infamous Magneto come face to face, even something as inconspicuous as a children's park becomes one. Not that pinning your opponent under glares that could melt the polar ice caps or passive aggressive threatening or mutual mocking of ideologies and fashion sense could be considered fighting either, but that’s only how far they can go with the Professor prohibiting them from violence on most days.

‘How much time do we have Professor?’ Bobby asks from the end of the circle. He's the only one in civil clothing (he had to sit this one out in favour of babysitting) amidst the others still dressed in their  _ combat _ suits.

‘Not much,’ Hank points out. ‘If the evidence they say they have shows up on the Brotherhood’s website tomorrow, it will antagonise relations between humans and mutants further and force the government into a meltdown by nightfall.’

‘In that case, we can just find every form of evidence they have and burn it down right?’ Bobby asks, subjecting them all with a look that says: how could anybody not have thought of that.

Storm sighs from where she has slumped on the stairs. ‘It's not that simple Bobby. They don't have any physical records like before. These are digital copies. Magneto says that he has already uploaded the copies on to the Brotherhood's server and it will be made visible to the public by daybreak tomorrow. So unless you have a genius way of making them disappear, there is nothing we can do.’

Bobby stares at Storm dumbly, his mouth rounding over an unuttered 'oh ’ .

The Professor- who is at the centre of the gathering, swipes his hand through his tousled hair, pushing it into further disarray. He hasn't spoken a word since their return to the mansion and it is putting the younger ones on edge to see the ever cheerful Professor in a stern lighting.

The Brotherhood were a malice only in the physical sense until now. They were masters in blasting buildings, blackmailing governments with human hostages, barking out death threats and co-ordinating abductions of political leaders, all without leaving a single clue pointing in their direction. But this was new even for them. The X-Men should have seen it coming though. In this day and age of digital revolution, one would be foolish to try to reverse the magnetic poles when one can spur more damage by the mere click of a button.

‘That Bastard Magneto. I should have simply shredded his guts when I had the chance to,’ Logan snarls, drawing his claws out of the sheath of his skin.

‘Logan!’ The Professor’s deep voice booms through the hall, echoing off the domed ceiling and filling the room with its reverberations.

Everybody in the room stills. Even the ever aloof Logan seems shocked by the Professor’s reaction but he quickly recovers.

‘Mind you tongue Logan,’ the Professor warns him with a murderous look in his eyes, ‘Some of them here are still children and I don’t appreciate resorting to violence to solve a problem.’

Logan doesn’t look ashamed per se, but he looks away muttering something under his cigar.

The Professor then snaps his head towards Alex. ‘And you Alex,’ he call out. Sean struggles to stifle his laugh on account of Alex’s startled expression when he looks up at the Professor. ‘It doesn’t help that you think the same thing in your head. Rachel is only twelve, and she doesn’t have control on her telepathy yet. She picked up on your thoughts. Be more responsible next time.’

Alex doesn’t react other than with a firm nod of his head but there is no doubt that he’s got the message loud and clear.

Sean had no delusions about the fact that the Professor is one of the most powerful mutants on the planet and anybody who would be willing to provoke him could only be a fool. The man could make people’s breaths stop with an unconscious thought for fuck’s sake. He was a mystery to add to that. There were very few people to none who knew about the Professor’s past and fewer who have seen the insides of his study on the fourth floor of the mansion. But he is also the kindest man Sean has ever known. A father figure to them all despite the former being in his late thirties.

‘Is there anything you can do about this Hank?’ the Professor asks, swivelling his chair to the furry mutant seated by the fire.

‘Give me a petri dish and a microscope and I can alter the gene sequences of everyone in the Brotherhood Professor. But I’m afraid I’m no good with a computer,’ he answers sheepishly.

The Professor sighs audibly as if accepting defeat when Hank speaks up again with a glint in his eyes, ‘Wait! Sean can do it. He designed the website for our school. He can hack into the Brotherhood’s website as well.’

Every head in the room turns to look at him and Sean is caught like a deer in the headlights. He regrets laughing at Alex now- Karma is a bitch.

The Professor also looks at him with wide hopeful eyes. ‘Sean, can you do it?’

Designing the school’s website was a walk in the park. There was nothing more to it than words and pictures. Hacking a website was a different ball game altogether. Granted he had hacked Facebook accounts of girls he had crushes on and a few porn websites, but those were harmless (depending on how you look at it). Attempting to hack the Brotherhood's website was asking for a death wish.

He begrudgingly agrees to it melting under the Professor's eyes.

‘Good.’ The Professor smiles. ‘Sean I know you can do it. You're a clever boy. Alex and Logan will help you with whatever you need as retribution.’ It was like appointing a lion and a tiger to protect a herd of sheep from wolves. Still, there was nothing he could do to protest.

With that, the Professor chases off the students gathered to bed and the X-Men slip out of the room one by one, clapping Sean on the shoulder as they left.

*

The Brotherhood’s website is fairly simple. There are various tabs ranging from 'History of Mutants’ to 'Hotline for victimised Mutants’ to 'Latest finding' and the kind. There's also a block of text dedicated to the Agendas and Principles of the Brotherhood, signed by their President, Magneto- a horrendous picture of the man himself glaring out from the front page.

Sean had learnt that hacking always works best from the inside. So he clicks on the Join button on the topmost corner of the page, registering himself as a member, under the username of ' **ShatteringGlass1994** ’ and the name of his first girlfriend as the password. With Alex almost dozing off on the couch opposite to him and Logan smoking his cigar pensively, he sets to work in peace.

He would have to be the administrator of the website to pull it down. Once logged in, he inserts a price of code to log in as the admin. It comes as no surprise that the admin of the website happens to be Magneto. Of course the site’s content had to flow under his nose. The control freak. Sean then proceeds to determine Magneto’s password. The website had asked him to choose a password with a minimum of eight characters, at least one letter being capital along with a special character and a number. The rules for authentication didn't vary over the network. Therefore the great Magneto had to follow the same rules for setting his password as the lesser public.

Sean starts off by feeding a password generating algorithm from the list of things that could make it to the metal manipulator’s password. ' **MutantSupremacy@1** ’ returns a message ' **Your Password is incorrect. Please try again with the correct password** ’ in red lettering. He then tries with combinations of the names of the Brotherhood’s founding members. The message remains unchanged. There is very little personal information known to anyone about Magneto except for the fact that he was orphaned very early in his life. Sean can't use any pointers or inputs from that end then.

Then it strikes him. People use the names of their loved ones as their passwords all the time. Even he chose the name of his first girlfriend. It can't be too different with the metal bender, can it?

There are only three people Magneto has ever dated in the public eye- the chic with the eye patch and green tentacles, the other chic with the live hair and Magneto’s creepy minion who came too close to dressing like the man himself. He feeds the algorithm with the three names and the message still is unchanged. The display on the screen is already showing 1 A.M. He only has a few more hours to get the job done.

Failing with the first approach, he writes a piece of code that would extract the password from the servers and embeds it into the webpage.

The green bar on the monitor tracking the progress of the code slugs for twenty minutes, Sean praying all the while for it to work. At the end of its execution, a message pops up on the screen. It's enough for Sean's face to go pale and lose control over his voice.

‘Crap,’ he finally croaks out after a while. Alex and Logan jump to his side in an instant following his alarmed look.

On seeing the screen, Alex is brimming with anger when he says, ‘Fuck.’

Logan smirks to his right. ‘Those naughty bubs.’

On the screen is an alert box reading, ‘ **You have successfully logged in as the administrator with the User ID: Magneto and Password: Charles <3** ’.

Bringing down the website is the last thing on their minds for the rest of the night.

-

**Author's Note:**

> If your wondering why Sean couldn't have just extracted the password from the server in the first place- that approach is traceable, it's a last ditch effort. Therefore the first option would be to goad the password out of the user's information.
> 
> Also do let me know if you can identify Magneto's partners:  
> the chic with the eye patch and green tentacles- this is pretty straight forward I guess  
> the chic with the live hair- she's not in the X-Men per say, but she is a part of the Marvel Universe  
> Magneto’s creepy minion who came too close to dressing like the man himself- this one is a little tough. I'll give a hint- his mutant ability is to enhance other mutant's abilities (he also dresses in red and purple)
> 
> [jackyjango ](http://jackyjango.tumblr.com)on Tumblr!
> 
> OK, I'll stop now. thanks for reading!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Brain Bleach (Your Password is Incorrect Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11437749) by [IreneADonovan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneADonovan/pseuds/IreneADonovan)




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